Work
Work is a term generally associated with images of bent backs, regardless of whether a particular task involves pushing a cart, doing the laundry, sweeping up, threshing grain, carrying heavy loads, fetching water or shining a customer’s shoes.
Work looks the same all over the world, no matter whether it be women from India’s lowest caste sweeping dust, or children performing artistic feats at the beach in Bombay (Mumbay) to earn a few coins, whether leather is being polished in a Shoe Shine Parlour, whether a barker is soliciting customers at a Hampstead Heath fair or women are fetching water at a Sardinian well. “The well was contaminated, because DDT had been used to fight the mosquitoes as part of the Marshall Plan. The white crosses painted on houses indicate that the house was sprayed with DDT.”
Suschitzky travelled to India several times. The picture of the woman washing clothes was taken in 1961, while Suschitzky was shooting The Peaceful Revolution, a film on the electrification of India. “I saw this woman doing her washing in a temple tank, as it is called there. They bang the clothes against a stone to get the soap to penetrate, and after rinsing, to get the water out. They say that only in India can a woman break a stone with a shirt.
Work looks the same all over the world, no matter whether it be women from India’s lowest caste sweeping dust, or children performing artistic feats at the beach in Bombay (Mumbay) to earn a few coins, whether leather is being polished in a Shoe Shine Parlour, whether a barker is soliciting customers at a Hampstead Heath fair or women are fetching water at a Sardinian well. “The well was contaminated, because DDT had been used to fight the mosquitoes as part of the Marshall Plan. The white crosses painted on houses indicate that the house was sprayed with DDT.”
Suschitzky travelled to India several times. The picture of the woman washing clothes was taken in 1961, while Suschitzky was shooting The Peaceful Revolution, a film on the electrification of India. “I saw this woman doing her washing in a temple tank, as it is called there. They bang the clothes against a stone to get the soap to penetrate, and after rinsing, to get the water out. They say that only in India can a woman break a stone with a shirt.
